Gumshoe reference guide

A 36-point structured review of any Australian entity, covering: ABN/ASIC registration status and history, director history across all associated entities, litigation and court records, ASIC enforcement history, insolvency and external administration history, ABN conduct patterns (GST cancellations, multi-entity clustering), domain and web presence, and public registry cross-references. Delivered within 48 hours. Suitable for pre-contract due diligence and investment screening.

Full forensic public-record intelligence on any Australian entity or key individual. Includes: complete director-network map across all connected entities, beneficial ownership tracing through ASIC register, litigation and enforcement timeline, property and financial register cross-references, media and regulatory history, and an executive summary with risk rating. Every source cited with primary-source references. Delivered within 5 business days.

Continuous surveillance on named entities and their key directors across ASIC, ABR, court records, and government enforcement registers. Alerts fire within 24 hours of a material change: new adverse finding, director change, insolvency appointment, or enforcement action. Designed for fund managers, lenders, and M&A teams with active portfolio positions.

Runs a full verification on the specified ABN. Returns structured JSON with all check results (abn, asic, conduct, domain, email, address, phone, street_view, risk_score). Parameters: checks (comma-separated subset), cache (boolean, default true — use cached result if <24h old). Response time: 2–15 seconds depending on checks requested.

Returns the current Squeeze Score and component data for the specified ASX ticker, crypto, or forex symbol. Returns: ticker, score, short_interest, days_to_cover, momentum, volume_ratio, updated_at.

Returns Viper Shield pattern data for the specified ticker or company name. Returns: current risk score, active campaign indicators, historical campaign count, and the Viper Pattern match score if a live campaign is detected.

ABN Status

ABN age is calculated from the status_from date in the ABR record, not the initial registration date. A cancelled-and-reinstated ABN resets this clock.

GST Registration

WHOIS & Domain Age

For .au domains, age is from auDA RDAP. For .com domains, from Verisign RDAP. Some registrars redact creation dates — these are treated as unknown age (WARN).

Email Validation

Spamhaus returns error codes in the 127.255.255.x range for rate-limit responses — Gumshoe filters these to prevent false positives. A "Rate limited" indicator on the trust tile means the check was queued; re-verify after the countdown to get a fresh result.

Trust & Reputation

NDIS Commission

Cross-references the entity name and ABN against the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission compliance actions register (3,200+ records, updated monthly). Covers banning orders, revocations, suspensions, compliance notices, and enforceable undertakings.

ABN matching is exact. Name matching uses trigram similarity > 0.65. Individuals named in banning orders (who may not have an ABN) are matched by name only — set a higher bar for a name-only match before treating it as confirmed.

ASIC Insolvency (External Administration)

Streams the full ASIC companies bulk dataset (4.3 million entities) and retains only those with status EXAD (External Administration) or DISS (Dissolved). ~30,800 active records. Updated monthly on Saturday nights from the official data.gov.au ASIC release.

ABN match is exact. Name match uses trigram similarity > 0.75 against both company_name and current_name (some companies trade under a different name to their registered name). Score weight: 10 (same as Street View — a FAIL here is a hard stop).

ACNC Charities Register

Checks the ACNC register of 65,000+ registered charities. Opt-in check — most businesses are not charities and will return N/A. Useful when you need to confirm charitable status for GST treatment, grant eligibility, or DGR status.

TPB Tax Practitioners Register

Checks the Tax Practitioners Board register of registered tax agents and BAS agents. Opt-in check — relevant when engaging a tax or accounting firm to confirm they are legally permitted to provide tax services.

APRA Regulated Entities

Checks whether the entity is an APRA-regulated institution: authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI), general insurer, life insurer, or private health insurer. Opt-in check — relevant for financial services supplier engagements.

Coverage: 126 ADIs, 209 general insurers, 32 life insurers, 195 private health insurers. RSE (superannuation trustee) data is covered by the Super Fund check.

ATO SG Non-Compliance

The ATO does not publish a named-employer SG non-compliance list as a public download. The ATO names employers in proceedings and media releases but does not maintain a structured register accessible for bulk verification. This check is not active in Gumshoe. For SG compliance exposure, use the Fair Work check and ASIC adverse records check — both cover related compliance history.

ATO Super Fund Lookup

Checks the ATO Super Fund Lookup register for APRA and ATO-regulated super funds. Returns PASS if the entity is a registered fund or trustee, N/A for all other entities. Opt-in — primarily used when verifying superannuation industry suppliers.

ASIC Company Status

Checks the full ASIC company extract for the entity's ACN (last 9 digits of the ABN). Returns the current registration status. Catches deregistered or struck-off companies presenting as active. Opt-in.

Data source: ASIC Company Register (3.49M records — REGD 3.22M, DRGD 193K, SOFF 49K, EXAD 30K). Updated monthly. ACN is derived as the last 9 digits of the ABN for company-type entities.

ASIC Business Names Register

Checks the ASIC Business Names Register for registrations against the entity's ABN, and also runs a name similarity search. Companies trading under a name other than their registered company name must hold a current business name registration. Opt-in.

Data source: ASIC Business Names Register (3.27M names, 2.9M active). Refreshed weekly. Matching by ABN + name similarity ≥ 0.8.

ASIC Financial Advisers Register (FAR)

Individual-level financial adviser check — distinct from the FSL (entity-level AFS Licence) check. Useful when verifying sole-trader financial advisers, SMSF advisers, or small advice practices that hold their own ABN. Opt-in.

Data source: ASIC FAR (88,583 records: 41,980 Registered, 36,603 Ceased). Refreshed weekly. Matching by ABN + name similarity ≥ 0.8.

ASIC Banned & Disqualified

Checks the entity name and ACN (derived from ABN) against ASIC's Banned & Disqualified Organisations and Persons registers. Covers AFS, credit, securities, SMSF trustee, and director banning orders. For sole traders and trusts named after an individual, the person-level register is particularly relevant. Opt-in.

Data sources: ASIC BD Orgs (15 total, 10 active) + ASIC BD Persons (7,139 total, 1,219 active). Refreshed weekly. Person matching uses pg_trgm similarity ≥ 0.75 on normalised name.

ASIC Financial Services Licence (AFS / Credit / Auditor)

Checks whether the entity holds a current ASIC financial services licence. Covers AFS Licensees (financial advice, funds management, insurance broking), Credit Licensees (mortgage brokers, consumer lending, car finance), and Registered Auditors. An entity operating in any of these categories without a valid licence is in breach of the Corporations Act. Opt-in.

Data sources: ASIC AFS Licensees (6,524), ASIC Credit Licensees (4,416), ASIC Registered Auditors (2,998) — refreshed weekly. Matching uses ABN/ACN plus name similarity.

Web Presence

Domain candidates are derived from the entity name by stripping legal suffixes (PTY LTD, etc.) and geographic qualifiers, then trying combinations of TLDs (.com.au, .com, .au, .net.au). You can override the discovered domain in the verification form.

Address Verification

The Street View premium check augments this by sending an AI vision model to the physical address to classify it as commercial, residential, or vacant.

Social & Registry

This check also cross-references ASIC business names registered under the same ABN. A business trading under a different name from its ABR registration is not unusual — but the registered trading names are surfaced for review.

Licence Status

Cross-references against QBCC (196,000+ Queensland building licences). NSW, VIC and SA registers are being added. Health profession licences via AHPRA are in the pipeline.

Adverse Records (Conduct)

Searches official_adverse_records across ACCC, QBCC, NSW Fair Trading, VBA/BPC, and QLD OFT. Matching uses ABN (exact) and entity name (trigram similarity > 0.55).

Severity levels: CRITICAL (court orders, active prosecutions, government banning orders), HIGH (formal warnings, licence cancellations), MEDIUM (complaints register entries, undertakings), LOW (minor or administrative notices).

Certificate Transparency (WHOIS / Domain)

Gumshoe queries crt.sh (the Certificate Transparency log aggregator) for every domain discovered during verification. This data is included in the WHOIS tile detail.

Coming for Phoenix Shield: Certificate Transparency alerting — receive a notification when a new certificate is issued for any monitored supplier's domain. A new cert issued for a supplier's domain by an unexpected CA may indicate domain compromise or impersonation activity.

Company Insolvency Gazette (opt-in)

Searches the AFSA/ASIC company insolvency gazette as aggregated by insolvencynotices.com.au. Covers liquidations, voluntary administration, winding-up, restructuring, and deed of company arrangement notices. Matched by entity name trigram similarity >0.72. Updated weekly (Saturday nights) via automated scraper.

Weight: 8 points. Name similarity threshold of 0.72 — higher than adverse records (0.55) to reduce false positives on common business name components. Results ordered by notice date (most recent first).

ATO Tax Debt Disclosure (opt-in)

Cross-references the entity's ABN against the ATO's quarterly tax debt disclosure list — businesses with collectable debts >$100,000 disclosed to registered CRBs (CreditorWatch, Equifax, Experian, Access Intelligence). Requires a CreditorWatch API subscription to activate.

Weight: 7 points. Match is ABN-exact only — the ATO data is indexed by ABN. Name-based fuzzy matching is also applied at threshold 0.75 for entities where ABN may differ from the publicly known name.

Fair Work Ombudsman Compliance (opt-in)

Checks the FWO compliance register for compliance notices, enforceable undertakings, and litigation outcomes. ABN-exact match. FWO data is not publicly available in bulk — loaded via CreditorWatch partnership or manual extract.

Weight: 5 points. FWO compliance notices result in WARN rather than FAIL — they represent past enforcement action, not necessarily ongoing conduct. Review notice details to assess recency and resolution status.

Customer Reviews & Reputation (opt-in)

Aggregates customer ratings from Trustpilot (domain + name search), ProductReview.com.au (name search), and hipages (for trade/construction entities). Uses JSON-LD AggregateRating parsing. All sources fetched in parallel with a 6-second timeout each.

Weight: 3 points. Review scraping may be rate-limited for high-volume use. Glassdoor (employee sentiment) is included as informational context in tile data but does not influence the PASS/WARN/FAIL outcome.

ATO R&D Tax Incentive

Queries the ATO's annual R&D Tax Incentive public disclosure dataset (13,000+ claimants, 2022–23). Returns PASS if the entity's ABN appears in the dataset with an eligible R&D expenditure amount. Match is ABN-exact. Covers the 40% tax offset (turnover <$20M) and 8.5%/16.5% tax offsets (larger companies).

Data source: ATO R&D Tax Incentive Transparency Dataset (data.gov.au) — annual release. Ingested from CSV; table rd_incentive. Weight: informational; does not affect the core assurance score.

Modern Slavery Statement

Searches the Australian Government Modern Slavery Register (17,000+ statements). Under the Modern Slavery Act 2018, entities with annual consolidated revenue ≥$100 million must file annually. Match uses ABN-exact and entity name trigram (≥0.65).

Data source: Australian Modern Slavery Register (modernslaveryregister.gov.au) — updated continuously. Table modern_slavery. Weight: informational.

WGEA Workforce Reporting

Queries the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) employer register. All private-sector employers with 100+ employees must report annually. Returns total workforce size, gender composition (% women), women in management %, and WGEA industry classification. Match is ABN-exact.

Data source: WGEA Public Dataset (wgea.gov.au) — annual release. Table wgea_employers. Weight: informational.

AusTender Government Contracts

Checks AusTender for Commonwealth contract awards to this entity in 2016–17 and 2017–18. Returns contract count, aggregate value, primary agency, and description of the largest single contract. ABN-exact match.

Data source: AusTender (tenders.gov.au) — 2016–17 and 2017–18 archive extract. Table austender_contracts. Weight: informational; positive capability signal.

ACCC Enforcement

Searches the ACCC enforcement register for infringement notices, court-ordered penalties, enforceable undertakings, and public warnings issued under competition law, consumer law, or product safety legislation. ABN-exact and entity name trigram match (≥0.6).

Data source: ACCC Enforcement Register (accc.gov.au) — scraped weekly. Table adverse_records (source=ACCC). Weight: 8 points; FAIL scored as high-severity adverse record.

B Corp Certification

Checks the B Lab global directory of Certified B Corporations. Certification requires a verified B Impact Assessment score ≥80 across governance, workers, community, environment, and customers, plus legal accountability to all stakeholders. ~600 Australian companies are currently certified. Match uses entity name trigram (≥0.7) against the B Lab directory.

Data source: B Lab B Corporation Directory (bcorporation.net) — scraped monthly. Table b_corps. Weight: informational; positive ESG signal.

Viper Shield — Activist Short-Seller Check

Searches the Viper Shield database for published activist short-seller reports targeting this entity. Match uses ASX ticker (exact) and entity name trigram (≥0.65). Returns report author, publication date, and allegation type where found. Applies to ASX-listed entities only.

Data source: Gumshoe Viper Shield database — updated within 48 hours of new campaign documentation. Table viper_reports. A FAIL result indicates documented allegations, not findings of fact — treat as a signal to investigate. See Viper Shield for the full entity profile and Viper Integrity Index™. Weight: 10 points; FAIL is high-severity.

Squeeze Sonar — Short Squeeze Signal

Queries Squeeze Sonar for the entity's ASX ticker. Returns a composite Squeeze Score (0–100), signal tier, short interest as a percentage of float, days-to-cover, and price momentum. Requires an ASX ticker — returns N/A for unlisted entities. Score is computed daily from ASIC short position disclosures (twice-weekly) combined with price and volume data.

Data source: ASIC Short Position Reports (published twice weekly) + ASX price/volume data. Table squeeze_signals. Weight: informational; not factored into the entity assurance score.